Levy University AU
by virgo-sorelli
Summary: Levy is a Freshman at Magnolia University, and she is looking forward to the year ahead. She makes friends, and even befriends the mysterious Gajeel that everyone seems to be wary of. Gajevy. Also read Erza's story by us in the same universe. Rated T for language and some alcohol/drug references. Please leave us a review and let us know what you think!
1. Chapter 1

**AN : These stories are co-written by me and my sister, although I run the Fan Fiction account. Our goal was to make a University AU for couple of different characters. They all take place at the same general time and have some connections. I am working on Levy, Erza, and a Cana, and I have ideas for other ones as well. But this one is Levy's experience.**

Chap 1

Levy trembled with ill-contained excitement and anticipation. This was what she had been looking forward to all summer long. The moment after she received her acceptance letter to Magnolia University, she had waited impatiently for move in day to arrive. Levy had annoyed her family and friends for countless hours, going on and on about the upcoming school year.

And here it finally was. She looked around the bustling campus and noted groups of upperclassmen, most likely catching up with friends and recounting stories of how they spent their summers. Booths lined the sidewalk, advertising different clubs and sororities trying to recruit new students. Levy saw a couple that looked interesting, but pushed aside her curiosity for the time being. It was probably best to find her dorm room and drop off all her stuff first.

She adjusted the duffle bag on her shoulder in order to fish a folded piece of paper from the University out of her purse. 'Mavis Hall, room 268' she checked it again for what seemed like the millionth time. She turned over the paper, squinting in attempt to decipher the crude map on the back.

A soft voice interrupted her thoughts. "Do you need any help, dear?"

Levy looked up to see a beautiful upperclassman with white hair and kind eyes. A badge that read 'SGA Representative' on it was pinned to the top of her cardigan. The girl didn't give her a chance to respond.

"My name is Mirajane! On move in day we always have some volunteers from the Student Government Association to help the freshmen find their way around, and you looked a little lost."

"I am a bit lost, yeah… Could you point me in the direction of Mavis hall?" Levy asked, smiling back at Mirajane.

"Oh! You're in Mavis? That's where my younger sister will be this year as well! She's a freshman, just like you. Her name is Lisanna, don't be afraid to go make friends with her, she's very nervous about starting college." Mirajane looked so hopeful that Levy just nodded in response. "Oh right, Mavis Hall! Sorry about that." She pointed to a nearby sidewalk. "Just follow that path, look out for signs, and it should be on the left."

Levy thanked her and continued on, rolling the packed luggage case behind her. The interaction with Mirajane had put her in an even better mood. Hopefully most of the people here were as nice as her.

Levy followed the path, gazing in awe at how beautiful and clean the entire campus was. She'd think that with all these people milling about, there would be some sort of litter or dirt, but the white pavement stayed clean. The grass on one side was immaculately trimmed, while the flower garden on the other was masterfully coordinated.

She stopped when she saw the brick sign that read 'Mavis Hall'. Her gaze slowly lifted to take in the place she'd be living in for the next couple months. The building definitely had character with its brick exterior and colorfully decorated windows. The door was a surprising purple color, which contrasted with the vibrant pictures someone had chalked onto the sidewalk leading up to it.

"Woah, it's Mavis Hall! I hear anything goes there...It's crazy!" Levy honed onto a passing conversation as soon as she heard the name of her new lodgings. She quickly glanced at the person as they walked by, but immediately looked back the building.

'Well I guess this strange place will be home for awhile,' she thought uncertainly. She hoisted her bag higher up onto her shoulder one last time before she stepped up onto the colorful sidewalk. Halfway to the door she was stopped short by an odd colored cat running by.

Levy paused for a second, surprised, when all of the sudden she heard a voice yell, "Oi! Grab that cat!" A boy with bright, pink hair bolted around the corner. She jumped out of the way just in time to watch him run by and dive to the ground, catching the cat between his hands.

The boy picked himself off the ground, cradling the cat in his hands like a baby. "Happy, if you run around people will find out you live here, and we'll get in trouble." He scolded the unapologetic looking cat. He seemed to realize that someone had witnessed that whole thing, because he suddenly glanced up, giving Levy an almost pleading. "Please don't report us to the RA!"

She laughed a little bit at the boys reaction. He looked like he was about to shed real tears. "Don't worry, I won't!"

"Cool, thanks!" he said, deflating in relief. His attitude instantly changed into a cheery, carefree one. "My name's Natsu, and this is Happy. We live in Mavis, room 269."

"I'm Levy. It looks like we'll be neighbors this year! I'm staying in 268." She returned his infectious smile. Natsu seemed nice enough, but also gave off a troublemaker air. Whether the fact that she lived so near to him was good or bad would be discovered later.

"Awesome! It's nice to meet you! I can help you to the rooms, if you'd like?" He offered, holding out a free hand for the heavy duffle bag.

"Oh! Only if you're going that way, of course…" Navigating this foreign building would be much easier with someone else there, but she didn't want to make Natsu go out of his way.

"Yeah, I have to put this guy back." He blew a puff of air between the cats ears and received a soft meow in return. "Plus, it'll be thanks for keeping quiet about him."

"Thank you!" Levy said as Nastu took her duffle bag and led the way into the building. The inside was equally as wacky, with random, student drawn murals on each wall. She was pleasantly surprised to find a rickety, old elevator in the middle of the building. It'll definitely be helpful when she wants to check out ridiculous amounts of books from the library.

"You're a freshman, right?" Natsu interrupted her future book plans. He was leaning against the elevator wall, clutching Happy in his arms tightly.

Levy laughed sheepishly and blushed. "Is it that obvious?"

"A little." Natsu laughed. "It's okay, we were all freshmen once. I'm a sophomore, so I know how it is."

Levy nodded in appreciation. "It's a little nerve wracking, but hopefully it'll be a great year! "

"Yeah, that's the spirit!" He pumped a fist excitedly into the air as they exited the elevator. "I'm sure you'll like it here, there's a lot of great stuff about Magnolia University."

Levy followed Natsu down the hall to their rooms when the door to room 269 swung open violently, revealing a dark haired boy dressed in nothing but boxers.

She could feel her face burning in embarrassment at the lack of clothing, but a part of her couldn't help be amused. The boxers were patterned with one hundred dollar bills, which struck her as oddly hilarious. Did guys usually wear stuff like this?

"Oi, did you find your stupid cat?" The guy seemed completely unperturbed by her presence.

"Put some damn clothes on!" Natsu yelled at him, "Levy this is my roommate Grey. You're lucky, usually he wears even less than this..."

Grey waved at Levy uninterestedly and went back into the room, mumbling something about how he managed to get the most annoying roommate this year.

Natsu looked momentarily annoyed, but immediately relaxed into a more amiable expression as he handed Levy's duffle bag back to her. "Well it was nice to meet you! Thanks for not ratting me out!"

"No problem!" Levy waved and Natsu disappeared into his room. As she was plucking up the courage to go into her own room and face her unknown roommate, loud voices started to erupt from behind Natsu and Grey's door.

Would she like her roommate? She didn't want to end up like Natsu and Grey, with someone who bothered her to the point of arguing. Levy breathed deep and slowly opened the door to reveal the tiny room. It was a normal dorm room that came with sparse furniture like a desk, plain bed, a dresser and the like. One half of the room was already decorated and personalized, while the other half was barren.

Her roommate, who was writing in a journal on the bed, looked up. "Hey! I'm Lucy. I guess we're roommates this year." Lucy was a beautiful blonde, and from the looks of it, also pretty rich. She was wearing nice designer clothes and had high-end décor that looked like it came from a magazine.

First impression: this could be alright.

"I'm Levy, it's nice to meet you." Levy set her duffle bag on the bed and rolled the luggage close to the dresser. The part she knew she'd hate: unpacking.

Lucy chatted away while Levy unpacked her things. Lucy was in school to study English and planned to become a writer after college. When she told the blonde about her love of books, it started a ten minute long gushing rant about her favorite genre. When Lucy finally moved on from that, she mentioned that she came to Magnolia University, because it was where her mother went to school.

Something in the way Lucy's demeanor changed when she mentioned it made Levy think that there was something more to the subject, but she decided not to say anything.

"So, why did you decide to come here?" Lucy asked as she completely abandoned her journal by placing it on the bedside table.

Levy shrugged from her place on the floor, surrounded by towering piles of clothes and books.

"It's an interesting place…" She thought on it more. "Different from the boring usual, ya know?"

Lucy scoffed, "I'll say! Did you see that guy next door? Pink hair! And don't even get me started on his roommate!"

Levy laughed as Lucy described her strange encounter with the two guys next door, and she couldn't help think that this semester would be a weird one.

A weird one, but definitely a good one.


	2. Chapter 2

The first day of classes didn't do exactly as Levy had anticipated. She ended up being five minutes late for her first class, a History course taught by Coach Dreyar. He was a kindly old man who had smiled at her from where he was perched on top of his desk. All he said was "Don't make it a habit to be late dear", although Levy suspected that there was more force and authority behind that smile than he was letting on.

Thankfully the day took a turn for the better when Levy arrived to her English elective, _Survey of Fioran Poetry_. She was pleasantly surprised to see she had the class with both Lucy and Natsu, who waved energetically at her when she first entered the room. The class went by quick and seemed to have an easy, chill atmosphere. Professor Conbolt seemed cool and joked around with them as class went by. Natsu seemed to particularly take a liking to him.

Levy's last class of the day was calculus, which she was dreading. It wasn't that she was _bad_ at math, it just didn't come as easy to her as english and history. Plus the word calculus was just intimidating. The class didn't go that badly, but she still wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

After class Levy headed back to her room, sighing as she closed the door behind her. Lucy looked up from where she was sitting on the bed and smiled.

"Hey, how was the rest of your day?" She asked, looking back down at the paper in her lap.

"It was alright. But I just know Calculus is gonna be a pain." Levy fell onto her bed face first with a plop. "How about you?"

"Meh." Lucy she her hand as if to say it was okay. "I started looking at the poetry assignment though. You want to do it together?"

"Sure!" Levy rolled off her behind and onto the floor to face Lucy. The assignment was to write their own interpretation of a poem, so she figured it wouldn't be that hard. She dug in her bag for the paper and began reading.

Levy didn't get far into the poem before they heard a heavy knock on the door.

They both looked up and shrugged at each other, signaling that neither had invited anyone by. Lucy got up and as soon as she opened the door Natsu walked right in, not looking for any invitation.

"Ah man!" he exclaimed, "It's the first day of this class and I'm already stuck on this stupid assignment." He immediately made himself comfortable on Lucy's bed, completely oblivious to the surprised stares he was getting from both girls. "I only took this class to get my Lit credit out of the way. This isn't even English!"

Natsu brandished the poem out in front of him. "How am I supposed to know what this old guy meant? How is anyone supposed to know? We can't exactly ask him since he's been dead a few hundred years!" The offending poem was promptly thrown over his shoulder in distaste. "Anyways, I'm hungry you guys got any grub?"

It became normal for Natsu to come over unannounced, asking for help with the homework and trying to eat every piece of food he could find. Lucy acted annoyed and told him to learn some manners, but Levy could tell that Lucy actually liked when he came over. Even Gray popped in from time to time. They had to make it a rule that he must _at least_ be wearing pants to come into the room after a couple incidents. Lisanna, who she met in her calculus class, stopped by often and hung out or invited them to parties.

Levy's life was busy and the strange inhabitants of Mavis Hall didn't help that one bit, but she couldn't help but think that this was the happiest she'd ever been. Her time at Magnolia University was looking to be all she wanted and more, which she reported back to her parents excitedly about.

She even enjoyed her classes- well except for the Physical Education requirement. The Culinary Arts class she had signed up for was something she struggled immensely with. At the time it seemed like a good idea. It seemed like a pretty easy art elective- and hey! she might get to eat some good stuff. She quickly discovered that cooking was not her strong suit. Everything she made was either undercooked or overcooked, and her chocolate chip cookies tasted too strongly of baking soda.

Levy was leaving lit class with Lucy and Natsu one day when she heard Professor Conbolt call to her. "Ms. Mcgarden, can I see you for a second." She waved goodbye to her friend and turned back to her professor, not really sure what was going on. Had she messed up on an assignment? All of them had been fairly easy up until this point, so she couldn't think of any possible reason for him to call her out.

"Yes, Professor Conbolt?" Levy asked as she approached his desk. She tried to look him in the eyes, but she was kind of nervous. She'd never been in trouble before with a teacher.

A tired smile spread over Professor Conbolt's face. "You're not in trouble." He said, as if reading her mind. "I just have a favor to ask of you."

Before he could finish, there was a knock on the door frame. "Hello~"

Both of them looked over to see a comical duo standing in the door frame. Coach Dreyar was grinning as per usual, but he was totally dwarfed by the unfamiliar student standing next to him. This guy had to be at least 6'0" or more, with a build that even the baggiest of shirts couldn't hide. He had long black hair and what Levy thought was way too many piercings.

"Ah, come in!" Professor Conbolt waved them over. "Levy this is Gajeel, he's a defensive lineman on the football team."

Gajeel just nodded at her, quickly looking the other way while crossing his arms.

"Anyway, all of the members need to keep up their grades and well…he would really benefit from a tutor for this class. Professor Conbolt highly recommended you for the job."

"Yes, Levy is one of my best students this semester," commented Conbolt, making her blush at the praise.

"Um, yeah I'd love to help out." She smiled, figuring it'd be good to get on the good side of two of her professors.

"I knew I could count on you," said Coach Dreyar with a wink, "I'll leave it up to you two to figure out what times are best for you. Thank you, Ms McGarden."

The professors walked away, leaving the two alone together. She peaked a glance at him, to see that he was still looking anywhere but at her. She was unsure about what to think of him. He looked different that's for sure what with the piercings and leather jacket. That plus his height and muscular frame, he could easily be perceived as intimidating. But Levy didn't sense anything threatening about him despite his gruff demeanor.

She coughed lightly to break the silence. "So, what time works for you to go over the material?" she asked in a small voice.

"Uh, usually Tuesday evenings are good." He replied in a predictably low voice.

"Okay! That works for me. I'll see you tomorrow then." she smiled and waved at him as she walked out of the room.

"See you later short stuff," he said back.

Levy was taken aback by the nickname at first, but figured he didn't mean it badly. After all she was probably very short compared to him, seeing as she only 5'2''.

Later that night, the usual crowd was in room 268.

"Oh, what did Professor Conbolt want after class, Levy?" Lucy inquired from she sat on the floor in front of her bed so that Lisanna could get a better angle to braid her hair.

Levy looked up from her book, startled that she had even remembered it. "Oh, he just wanted me to tutor some guy from the football team."

"Eh? Who?" Natsu asked. "At least I'm not the only player on the team who's doing badly in his class…"

She laughed at Natsu. "Some guy named Gajeel."

Natsu's eyes widened, "That guy? He's pretty scary, almost as scary as the co-captain Erza. He never talks to anyone but his friend Lily. Speaking of which, since when is Lily a boy's name?"

"He didn't seem so scary to me." Levy shrugged.

Natsu jumped up, a conspiratory look on his face. He looked around the room, even though the door hadn't been opened once since Lisanna came in. "Well, I heard from Grey who heard from Elfman who apparently heard from some guy that Lily went to high school with that he was on trial as a suspect in a murder, but they had to drop the charges because there wasn't enough proof."

"What?!" Lucy jumped, making Lisanna groan in defeat as the braid she was working on slipped out of her hand. "Levy you can't tutor him, you're like...tiny! He could kill you instantly."

Levy rolled her eyes, "I'm sure that story isn't true. It sounds a little farfetched to me."

"Maybe, maybe not! But you should still be careful."

Natsu nodded in agreement.

Lisanna shrugged. "I don't know, people will surprise you. Like my sister, Mirajane!"

Natsu shivered. "You mean like how she looks sweet and innocent, but will threaten to chop your balls off in a second?"

Lisanna laughed. "Not quite what I meant, but I guess that's true."

The subject was dropped, but Levy couldn't help worry about it further. What could Gajeel have done to have these horrible rumors spread about him? Was it all just something that was taken out of control by gossiping college students or was there some truth?

Also, what in the world did Natsu do to have Mirajane threaten to castrate him?


	3. Chapter 3

The next day Levy had Culinary Arts, which instantly put a damper on the mood for at least a couple hours. The class assignment sounded easy enough: make a simple omelette. Levy managed to burn hers to the pan on one side and wasn't able to flip it, resulting in what looked like blackened scrambled eggs and an unbearable smell. She received a couple looks of pity from her classmates, who had all managed to finish the task in half the time it took her.

After she escaped from class, she quickly went back to her room to shower, then grabbed her Lit books and left the room to meet Gajeel. The tutoring session in the library, which was actually pretty far away from Mavis Hall, unfortunately. She counted it as her dorms only downside. It didn't take long for Levy to tire out, because the Lit textbook itself was pretty heavy, and she had also come prepared with her notebook and a book of poetry.

Plus that, her arms were weak and hurting from an earlier trip to the library where she had checked out more books than anticipated, and had to carry them all the way across campus by herself.

It was really all her fault, but she needed those books! They were totally necessary, no matter what Lucy said about space problems in the dorm.

Levy was glad to see that she arrived before Gajeel. By the time she picked a suitable seat, her arms were ready to give out and it would've been embarrassing when she dropped her books loudly on the table. For the second time today, she received weird looks from the students nearby for her struggles.

She sat down and organized her material in front of her, setting some pens and pencils to the side just in case. Once she was satisfied, she looked around. Gajeel was nowhere in sight and the wait only gave her more time to contemplate what had been said yesterday. He couldn't be all that bad, to be accepted into Magnolia University...right? But still, bad things happen at college all the time.

Gajeel didn't give her long enough to freak herself out. He rounded the corner and gave her a smirk as he pulled out the chair next to hers.

"Hey, short stack." The same nickname was one of the first things out of his mouth. Levy hadn't expected it to become a habit.

His demeanor didn't read as threatening though; a little gruff maybe. Sure he looked tough, but Levy had read enough books to know that the usual saying, 'never judge a book by it's cover' was generally true. Heck, one of her favorite books series had some bad cover art. If she hadn't given it a try, she never would've discovered one of the best stories she'd ever read. She liked to keep the same outlook when it came to people.

"Hey," she smiled up at him shyly. "Well let's get started. Where in the class did you start having trouble?"

"Well...Somewhere around chapter one, I guess," he replied sheepishly as he pulled his book out of his backpack. When Levy laid eyes on it, she involuntarily let out a surprised gasp.

"What the _hell_ have you done to that poor book?!" Gajeel's textbook was in a very sorry state. The cover was still on, but only just. It was hanging on only by a thin amount of material. Levy could see the pages were wrinkled and bent and on the cover and the inside page were crudely drawn caricatures of Professor Conbolt. On instinct she grabbed the book out of his hands and started smoothing out the pages. Any fear of him she might've or should've had vanished. It upset her greatly to see a book in such a state so much that she didn't catch the incredulous look on Gajeel's face.

"It's only a couple weeks into the semester, you should really be taking better care of your books, you know," she scolded, still trying to recover some of the book's former glory.

Gajeel raised a studded eyebrow at her little outburst. A crooked smirk twisted his mouth up.

"Alright, alright. I'll take care of my books, just don't beat me up too bad." he teased, leaning onto the table as he looked at his tutor like he was seeing her in a new light.

Levy was about to continue with a speech on why books should be treated with respect, but she looked up to see Gajeel's smirk and stopped in her tracks. Levy forgot what she was going to say. If you had asked her her name, she might not have been able to answer at that moment. The sight left her dumbfounded with a weird whirly feeling in her stomach.

Levy composed herself mentally, "Well I won't make any promises," she retorted.

Jokingly, she stared at Gajeel trying to put on the most threatening face she could muster up, but failed miserably as her smile took over.

Gajeel roared with laughter at her pitiful attempt at being threatening. Several surrounding people sent dirty looks in their direction, but Gajeel didn't seem to notice. Levy giggled too, feeling her face heat up for some inexplicable reason. She felt a sense of pride in being able to make this person, who had seemed so stoic the last time they'd met, crack up in a fit of laughter.

"Alright! Well we should get some work done..." she said, still feeling the threat of another smile on her lips.

They went over the material covered most recently in class: Fioran poems. Gajeel seemed to have more or less the same problem as Natsu when it came to this. Poems weren't the most straightforward way of saying things, while Natsu and Gajeel...they were as straightforward as it got. Thanks to her experience of basically tutoring Natsu when he invited himself over, she was able to explain things in a way that Gajeel understood.

It was a slow process, but Levy got him to understand the basic thinking processes of a poet. After they had covered the required materials, they both gathered their things. Levy went to pick up her book, but she was having trouble even getting them off of the table. Great. Here comes the embarrassment she wanted to avoid.

Gajeel raised an eyebrow and another smirk spread across his face. "Gehe. Are you having trouble there, Shrimp?"

"Ahah you see," Levy explained blushing, "I took out some books, because I'm not doing so well in my Culinary arts class… I carried so many home that it made my arms hurt."

"Really? I might be able to help you out with the cooking thing..."

"O- oh really?" She couldn't help her surprised expression.

"What you don't think I can cook?"

"No-no it's not that. It's just you don't seem like the type to cook is all."

"Well, you'd be surprised Shrimp. Lily and I have one of the dorms in Warrod hall with a tiny stove. We can work there, if you're okay with that." He seemed to add that on the end quickly, as if expecting Levy to be weirded out by his invite.

"Oh yeah! That sounds like a great idea. Thank you!" This development made her feel better about this morning's omelette incident. With Gajeel's help, maybe she'll be able to pass that stupid class. "Here, why don't we exchange phone numbers."

She pulled out her phone and added a new contact, peeking up to see Gajeel doing the same. They exchanged phones and added the information. Levy put a book emoji by her name to be cute, or so she hoped he'd think it was...

She took her phone back from Gajeel and handed back his, smiling widely. It occurred to her that maybe it looked like she was flirting with him, but honestly her cooking skills were just that bad. (Would flirting with him be that bad anyway? Levy decided that that was a topic to think about at a later time, preferably when he wasn't standing right in front of her.)

Gajeel picked her books off the table and led the way out of the library. They made small talk on the way back, talking about normal get-to-know-you type things. Levy learned that Gajeel was an undecided major, and he was here on football scholarship. He needed to keep his grades up in order to keep his scholarship and stay at Magnolia University.

Levy glanced over at him while he was talking, noticing that Gajeel wasn't traditionally handsome, but he was definitely attractive. Long black hair accentuated tan skin and a pretty muscular build. Plus those cheekbones though...

She had to stop herself from staring for too long. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she was weird.

They finally reached Levy's room and she unlocked the door. It swung open to reveal the usual gang lounging around the room. When they saw Gajeel, they all stopped talking and stared.

"Hey everyone! I think you know Gajeel. Gajeel this is my roommate Lucy, and my friends Lisanna, Natsu, and Gray."

Gajeel nodded at them quietly, and they all stared back.

"Well short stuff," he said, "where can I put these down."

"Oh, yes of course!" She lead him to the desk where he set them down surprisingly gently.

"Thank you Gajeel, see you next week," she waved as he made his way back to the door.

"No thank you, Shorty. See ya." With one casual wave of his hand, he was out.

When the door was shut behind him, every head in the room pivoted to stare at Levy. The onslaught of questions was immediate.

"OMG, how was it?"

"Did he talk about his time in Magnolia Penitentiary?"

"Did he threaten you? Are you okay?"

"How many piercings do you think he has? Like there has to be more than what's visible-"

A lot more questions ensued.

Levy cleared her throat and everyone shut up. "He was actually very nice," Levy said, "I don't think he's actually as scary as everyone seems to think."

"Whaaaaaat?" Natsu seemed put out from the lack of gossip. "And I was so certain about that murder charge."

Levy caught Lucy looking at her suspiciously, like she was trying to figure something out. She just stuck her tongue out at the blond and mouthed 'Later'. Lucy nodded and went back to pacifying Natsu into doing his homework for once. Everyone else moved on to a different topic now that they knew Gajeel was not as interesting as they'd thought.

It was only later when everyone else had left that Lucy brought it back up.

"So..he was okay?" She asked from where she was lying on her bed.

Levy looked up from her Culinary book. "Yeah. he's actually very nice. Nothing like I expected from hearing all the rumors."

"And he offered to carry your books home?" Lucy raised an eyebrow, a smirk playing at her lips.

"I mean, yeah…" Levy nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "My arms were tired from checking out all these books." She made a grand gesture to the pile of books Gray had been using as a mini-throne earlier that night.

A full-blown smirk cracked Lucy's face. "I saw the way he looked at you! He definitely likes you."

She rolled her eyes, but felt her cheeks heat up regardless. "I just met him, Luce…"

"Oh la la, you guys would be so cute! He's super tall and you're super short, you're a bookworm and he's a football player! It's like the plot of this YA book I've been reading-"

Once Lucy was on a roll, it was hard to stop her. By the end of the night, she had Levy and Gajeel's entire future planned out, including the names of their to-be children. (SHE'D had gone with the names Lucy and Liam to Levy's horror)

She buried her head under the pillow to drown out her best friend's imaginary tale. She took out her phone and opened up the newly added contact for the first time. A smile spread across her face as she noticed that he had added a football and a sunglasses emoji after his name.

No, he definitely wasn't a bad person.

Gajeel POV

Gajeel caught the football right before it could make contact with his forehead. He swiftly sent it back to the other side of the room where he knew Lily was waiting to catch it. It was sent back to him like clockwork.

This was just how he and his best friend spent idle time in the dorm.

He sighed, robotically moving to catch the ball again. Ever since his tutoring appointment earlier today, he couldn't keep his mind from wandering. It'd been awhile since he talked to someone new that wasn't completely terrified of him. This blue-haired bookworm had taken his appearance in stride and scolded him- _scolded him for fuck's sake_\- without batting an eyelash. Before he could stop himself, another sigh escaped his lips.

He felt Lily's gaze tear from his book and over to him. Lily caught the ball anyway, still staring at Gajeel. He waited in silence, knowing the storm was coming.

Finally, the silence was broken. "So, what's got you sighing? Does it happen to have anything to do with the tutoring session you went to?"

Without fail, Lily was able to read him like a book. Gajeel caught the ball again, but didn't send it back.

"Yeah, I guess. School is pretty hard, ya know. It sucks to have to be tutored." He threw the ball.

"Yeah, but school being hard is regular. That wasn't a regular Gajeel sigh."

Gajeel rolled his eyes and made a face. "I don't like the fact that you can tell the difference between my sighs. It's really fucking weird."

Lily threw the ball and looked back to his book. "I've known you for a long time, so sue me. So what _really_ has you sighing?"

Gajeel sighed once more, sending the ball into another graceful arc in the air. "You, right at this moment." He shot his friend a look, only barely ducking out of the way as the ball was whipped straight at his face. "Dude!"

"Seriously though," Lily said, sitting up from his bed. "I know something is up. You're gonna tell me sooner or later."

He huffed. "Fine, you win!" Gajeel sat up as well, avoiding the smug smile he knew Lily had on his stupid face. "It does have to do with the tutoring session. Not the material, but the tutor…"

The smug smile disappeared. "What? Is he a dick? You can go to Coach and ask for another one, he'd understand."

He scoffed. "No I'm just...kinda intimidated by her." Gajeel mumbled the last part, unwilling to admit this fact.

"Waaaait a second. Are you telling me that you, Gajeel Redfox, best defensive lineman on the Magnolia University football team, are _intimidated _by _a girl_?!"

"Fuck you, girls can be plenty scary!" He chucked the ball at Lily, hoping to do some damage. "She's not really intimidating in my kind of way. She's just smart. Like, crazy smart!"

"Hmmm, really? Tell me more about this girl?"

Gajeel gave him a weird look but continued, basically repeating facts from the conversation they'd had on the way to Levy's dorm. "Her name is Levy and she's an anthropology major. She knows like 5 different languages, while I've barely mastered one for fuck's sake. Pretty sure she's read every book in existence too…"

"Yeah...Anything else?"

"She's...really attractive." Gajeel covered his face with a hand in embarrassment. He remembered walking next to Levy today, all five feet two inches of her. He liked her curly blue hair and hazel eyes, and especially the gentle curves of her slender figure.

When he looked over at Lily, the smug smile was back. Gajeel lamented that he didn't have the football to slam into his face.

Lily only laughed and laid back down to read his book. "I think my work here is done."

Gajeel only groaned in response, curling in on himself in more embarrassment. This was the first time on campus that he was beginning to open up to someone. Usually he was avoided because of his scary looks, but he just wasn't good at talking to new people.

He couldn't screw this up.

"So, when am I gonna meet her?" Lily asked, a smile in his voice.

"Well, I'm helping out with her Culinary Arts class, so she'll be coming here next week."

"Wow, you move quick."

He chucked his pillow across the room, but Lily only laughed harder.

**A/N: Please leave a review and tell us what you think! Much appreciated.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Sorry about an update taking so long! reviews welcome and appreciated.**

They had decided to meet at Gajeel's dorm on Saturday. There they would be able to practice making the next project in Culinary Arts: banana bread. Levy found herself kind of worried about today's meeting; they would be alone. Well, they were technically alone yesterday but there were people all around in the library. She found Warrod hall okay, she walked past it occasionally but had never been up close. As she saw it up close and then walked in she was surprised at how shabby it was. She smelled a pungent parfum of someone smoking weed. Levy looked down at the her watch, 3.p.m. seemed a little early for people to start smoking in her opinion.

She entered the building and headed towards the elevator only to see a sign that read "Elevator out of order." _Great_ she thought to herself. Gajeel's room was 503, which means it's on the fifth floor.

As Levy walked up the stairs she felt herself getting out of breath around the third floor, and but the time she reached the fifth floor she was embarrassingly out of breath. _Man I should really start working out. _She thought to herself. She reached the door to 503, knocked, and tried her hardest to conceal her heavy breathing.

The door opened to reveal Gajeel, his tall muscular frame taking up most of the doorway.

"Hey Shortie."

"Hey." She replied with a little too much breath behind it. She saw that smirk spread across his face and it made her the tiniest bit _more_ breathless.

"Ghehe I see they haven't gotten around to fixing the elevator yet. Ya know Shrimp I think the next thing I need to help ya out with is some cardio." Before she could come back with a witty retort he started walking into his dorm. "Come on in Shrimp.

Levy wasn't exactly sure what she was expecting, maybe a room with some football propaganda, a mess, a weird smell that most boys rooms have (Natsu and Gray's room had a hint of it).

The room was as shabby as the building, but it was kept very neat. However that might have been due to the lack of things. They had the standard dorm furnishings but there were very few personal touches that levy could see. But maybe she had just gotten used to the way Lucy decorated. There was a small common area with a kitchenette. A very small stove and sink area. Levy thought it was cute. Not far away was a couch and a TV, there were 2 other doors Levy guessed one went to the bathroom, and the other to the rooms. It was really just the basics, as opposed to Levy and Lucy's room where Lucy had fancy decorations and Levy had all her books and posters.

Lily emerged from the bedroom, "Hey" he waved. He was tall as well, almost as tall as Gajeel. Well muscled and bald with dark skin. He was carrying a bag on his shoulder.

"Levy this is my roommate Lily. Lily this is Levy"

"Nice to meet you Lily"

"Nice to meet you to Levy. Sorry I can't stay, I've heard you're quite the chef, but I have a date with my girlfriend Charla."

"Okay, well you're really missing out on some good food but it's your loss." she joked.

Lily left and she was alone with Gajeel. "This will be our workspace today," he gestured to the tiny kitchen area. "It's not much but I think it'll work." It would be cramped that's for sure.

Gajeel handed her an apron, it was plain black and said, "kiss the cook." It was so cheesy, Levy thought these only existed in TV sitcoms

"Interesting choice." Levy commented.

"Yeah well Juvia got it for me, she thought it would be funny or something."

_Who is Juvia_? She thought. _A girlfriend?_

He put his apron on. It was white but had clearly seen a lot of action in its day. Besides being decorated with various food stains, there were crudely drawn pictures that were pretty much indecipherable, and hand prints where the child had stuck their hands in paint and then on the apron. In a child's handwriting was written "World's best Chef"

"Oh that is adorable," Levy commented, "do you have a younger sibling?"

"No actually I made it. You see this?" In one corner there was 'Gajeel' written. He saw the slight look of confusion on Levy's face and explained further. "You see, I made this apron for my mom when I was really young. She was actually the world's best chef. I used to spend a lot of time in the kitchen with her, she taught me everything she knew before she died. She had plenty of other aprons, but she always wore this shitty one I made her when I was 5."

Levy didn't know what to say. For a moment she thought he saw sadness in his eyes. But before she could think of anything comforting he had moved on to the next thing.

"Well I didn't mean to make things so somber in here. Let's get to work!"

"Oh I brought some bananas with me." said Levy taking them out of her bag.

"It's okay," Gajeel responded, "I already have some." He gestured to some bananas that were mostly brown in color."

"Are you sure…?" Levy asked suspicious.

"Oh yeah. Those bananas you have are practically green. Using these brown ones gives the banana bread a better flavor." Levy was still suspicious but what did she know, she was the one that needed tutoring in the subject.

Levy preheated the tiny oven while Gajeel pulled out all the necessary ingredients.

"So how is it living in Warrod hall?" she asked as she heard loud music coming from one direction, and from the other a banging on the wall that was definitely someone's headboard hitting the wall during sex.

"Well, it's pretty much like this around the clock." He answered. "You see the dorms that the Freshman live in are just for show. They're trying to get people to attend by luring them with nice dorms, but then a lot of the upper-classman dorms are shit. Warrod though is the worst of the halls. Mostly everything breaks, there isn't much sound proofing, and somehow the worst and sloppiest people live here. Last year Lily was in our shower, so I went the the building's public showers. It stank only to find out someone shit in one of the showers. I couldn't stomach taking a shower in the bathroom because it all reeked like shit so I ended up going to class smelling like a gym sock."

"Haha oh man," Levy laughed, "that really sucks"

"Eh, well it definitely keeps things interesting" Gajeel replied.


End file.
